Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

[W.T. Fits]

Part of the reason why Kingdom Hearts's overall plot arc is such a tangled mess of kudzu is because Tetsuya Nomura believes that whenever you have a sequel that explains away some of the mysteries from the previous installment, it should also introduce more mysteries to keep the audience hooked. So you end up with people going "WTF is going on?" at the main games and then they add side games to explain stuff from the main games but also raise even more questions about what the hell is going on. This is further compounded by the various mainline titles being for one system while all the side games are from a bunch of different handheld systems, and then we factor in remakes of the previous games that add a few more things here and there...

Don't get me wrong, I'm still a fan of the series, but I will legitimately be relieved when KH3 comes out, if only because it's supposed to be the conclusion to everything else that's happened up to this point. (Though I would not be surprised if Nomura ends it in a way that's supposed to set up for whatever the next big myth arc is supposed to be for the franchise.)

[Aria Genisi]

[Aria Genisi]

but seriously, I'm at like, nearing the halfway mark of the main game for KH2 and god i fucking love this game

KH1 is extremely charming and fun, but certainly flawed
CoM/Re:CoM is unique and good but hard to get into
KH2 is just absolutely fantastic. slow to start, and the main overarching plot is weird to jump into, but once you get into the world map proper, this game is a delight

Nearly everything about this game feels like a huge improvement from KH1. The camera is zoomed back a bit, so it's not crowded up against Sora. Reaction Commands are added, which, while it can sometimes mean that you're just sometimes mashing Triangle in addition to the X button, add variety and flavor to the normal combat that the first game sorely lacked. Once you get out of the intro, you quickly start getting abilities that enhance the normal combat flow, adding extra abilities and extra features to it. You can change party members in the field using the command menu, instead of having to run back to a save point if you want to bring out Donald/Goofy instead of the guest hero for that world. You have LIMIT BREAKS in addition to summons and shit, and all the guest heroes have their own limit breaks (as do Donald and Goofy). Learning new spells and abilities aren't limited to level ups this time, as beating bosses and special encounters reward you with particular bonuses, allowing for low level runs and the like. You have Drive Forms, where you eat up a party member (Donald, Goofy, or both) to bring out a particular form, which has it's own unique abilities and specialties.

And all the worlds feel larger, more alive, and more unique in this game!

Olympus Coliseum is one of the few returning worlds, and instead of being *just* an arena minigame to return to throughout the game, it's a proper world, with it's own story and everything. KH1 had moreworlds based on classics like The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and Aladdin than stuff based on Tarzan and Nightmare Before Christmas. KH2 has the whole gamut, from Mulan, Tron, and Pirates of the Caribbean, to stuff like The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Steamboat Willie.

YEAH!!! KH2 has a world based on Steamboat Willie and that sort of really old Disney shit. It's sadly not very long, but it still RULES. Like, this game has the most worlds to date where Sora and Co are in new costumes/forms to fit in some of the worlds. In the Steamboat Willie world, Timeless River, everyone looks like their original incarnation, and Sora is in that same sort of early animation style. In the returning Atlantica world, everyone is transformed like they were in KH1. And there's more later on!

They didn't do any changes for Port Royal though, so you have realistic looking models (for PS2 era anyways) of characters/actors from Pirates of the Caribbian: Curse of the Black Pearl standing side by side with the anime and cartoony looks of Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Pete and it's *incredible*.

God I could just ramble on forever about this game. KH1 I enjoyed a lot. Playing it again, it's absolutely got it's flaws, but it's got an undeniable charm that I adore. It got me hooked on KH, and I love it. But KH2....ohhhhh boy, KH2 is basically the single greatest reason why I love this series so much. It's a fun hack-n-slash RPG with an amazing blend of crazy, nostalgia, and just pure fun.

[Aria Genisi]

And that's not even including the changes to the Gummi Ships! In KH1, it was kind of slow, kind of boring and tedious traversal method to get from world to world (which you could skip once you unlocked the warp drive and automatically warp to any world you've been before). In KH2, however? It's more or less just star fox levels. You get a world map and you can freely fly between worlds, going directly to unlocked worlds. As you go through the game, you unlock pathways among the worlds, and before a given world, you first have to beat a gummi ship level, and they're easy to just complete. You only have to ever beat each gummi ship level once, and the levels themselves are straightforward and really fun. Beating a gummi ship level unlocks premade blueprints, so as you go on through the game, you can keep up with the newer and harder levels without even touching the gummi ship editor, though if you wanted to get all the gummi ship rewards and missions, you'd have to go into the editor and make your own ship sometime.

[W.T. Fits]

Also, let us not forget that Auron from FF X is in the Olympus Colosseum in KH 2, and he basically shit talks Hades right to his face.

Hades: I AM THE LORD OF THE DEAD!
Auron: No wonder nobody wants to die.

[Aria Genisi]

This is my story. And you're not part of it.

[Aria Genisi]

cleared all the worlds so far(including the Pride Lands!), so then it's off to Twilight Town to activate the Hollow Bastion Revisit

The Hollow Bastion Revisit is where you actually get to explore the world proper, and it marks the halfway point in the game. Once you clear it, it's off to all of the other worlds we already went through to experience a new story scenario, resolve new issues that pop up, and help the people out there.

But first, a whole chunk of content here, including a detour into the Tron world, Space Paranoids. Leon and the other FF characters found Ansem's old study, back from when Hollow Bastion was his castle, and Ansem was still human. Importantly, they found his computer with all sorts of potentially useful secret data. And he stole a copy of the computer system from the Tron movie to use as his OS. And the MCP is in control. And after smashing on the keyboard too much, the MCP digitizes the party into the computer. Uh oh.

Sora gets help from Tron to unlock the data on the computer, and the MCP attempts to fuck up the real world At the end of it, the MCP is stopped for now, and the data is unlocked. Along the way, Sora and Leon looked for the password and...welll....



Folks, we have a thread title!

[Aria Genisi]

NEW KH3 TRAILER

[Aria Genisi]

[Aria Genisi]

So I've been working on the KH2 FM postgame for a while.

I've kind of been mentioning my progress in discord for anyone who'd care to listen, and guess what: KH2 still owns.

After hollow bastion, Org XIII reveals that you fighting the Heartless was their plan all along, and so you then have to go revisit the worlds, dealing with their bullshit and finding a way to their HQ. Ultimately you do, you storm their castle and kick all of their asses, and their leader, Xemnas, is one of the most ridiculously long final boss fights ever. First you get a 1v1 duel. Then you get your point of no return final boss gate and final save point. You go in, and you fight Xemnas, who's piloting his giant dragon castle fortress, and when you blow up all the parts and beat his face in, it looks like you've finally won. You get wrapup with Roxas and Namine, and everyone's about to leave....but then you and Riku get trapped in the world, and you're fighting EVEN MORE FINAL BOSS. AND IT JUST KEEPS HAPPENING. ALL OF IT OWNS.

And then there's the postgame. Normally, if this was vanilla KH2, you'd just have the optional Paradox Cups in the Underdrome, acting as the postgame hard mode versions of the Underdrome challenges, and then you'd have Sephiroth as an optional boss. Aaaaand that'd be about it. Final Mix adds in a hard optional extra area in Hollow Bastion, unlocked during the revisit: The Cave of Remembrance.

It's full of hard enemies, you require leveling up all your drive forms for their mobility abilites just to traverse it, and at the end, you reach the Garden of Assemblage, which has data replica versions of all 13 of the Organization XIII bosses. The same bosses that showed up throughout the game have higher stats, way more health, and are sometimes tweaked in various ways to make their fights harder. Every single nasty trick that could show up in these fights are in full force here. And you need to beat all 13 of them in order to get a Proof, which is the game's signifier that you completed one of the three Final Mix postgame challenges.



The second Proof is from the Mushroom XIII, who show up throughout the various worlds with odd minigames. The difficulty of these things vary, and they're generally themed after their numbered Organization XIII counterparts. One of them has you trying to burn through the enemy's health bar as they constantly regenerate health. Another has you juggle the enemy in the air without letting it land on the ground. And other sorts of stuff like that. You need to hit specific targets for these things to be appeased. Appeasing the 12 that show up throughout the worlds lets you meet Mushroom No. XIII, who rewards you with a new keyblade and the Proof for clearing their challenges.



As for the final Proof....well, I'm still working on that.

[Aria Genisi]

in KH1 Final Mix, there was UNKNOWN, who was essentially part ultimate superboss, and part preview for the next main game in the series. The unknown black cloaked dude was in actuality Xemnas, showing up early to test Sora. And despite the problems with that game's combat system, he was probobly the best out of the optional boss fights.

So here we are in KH2 Final Mix, and there's a brand new superboss, that's also a preview for the next major game in the series. When you beat the game, a portal shows up in Disney Castle, leading to a barren wasteland. Here, you find the Lingering Will. It's an animated suit of armor wielding a shape-changing keyblade. And it is extremely angry, seeking revenge against the series antagonist Xehanort. Worse yet, it's directing it's blind rage at you.


The Sephiroth battle is challenging, but it's pretty doable compared to the horseshit that is his KH1 incarnation. If you're on top of your game, you'll be able to knock him down. The Data Org XIII are tough, beefy, and will unleash every last bit of horseshit in their arsenal, but they're ultimately just way tougher refights of pre-existing bosses.

Lingering Will is THE superboss. An extremely angry motherfucker that's quick, hits like a freight train, and has just a ton of various nasty attacks in his disposal. He's the single hardest boss in the game, I'd say, and he's guarding the final Proof I need to complete postgame's toughest challgnes. And he has a fantastic boss theme:

[Aria Genisi]

So, gummi ship missions. Instead of weird and kinda boring star fox shooter transit gameplay, it's just straight up star fox stages. You just need to play each stage once to unlock their respective paths, but if you dive into the missions, you've got a bit more challenge than just complete the stage. You gotta collect enough medals (that enemies drop), or blow up enough enemies, or just get a high enough score. As you play the stages more and get better ranks, you get more parts to build better ships. Sure, you can use pre-made ships, but for the best scores on the harder stages and missions, you're gonna want to build your own ship.

Except, there's a little quirk to it. See, enemies target the center of your ship space when shooting at you. And if there's nothing to collide with in that space, then it'll pass right through you.



So the single most powerful type of ship design is just this stupid ugly donut. Place some large guns around it, throw in some neon lights for power boosts, and give yourself an outline so you can at least take SOME damage. Make your teeny ship bits just some guns, equip some of the right skills to your ship and presto! you've created a ship powerful enough to S-rank every mission (save for the bonus EX missions, which have their own weird requirements, and you'll have to build to their specifications).

No, seriously. This stupid donut is nigh invincible, and it just spits out damage without you having to worry about dodging about....95% of all the attacks that get sent your way.

It's incredible.

[Aria Genisi]

That's it. Lingering Will is defeated.

This fight was easily the hardest in the series yet. He's very adept at juggling you and throwing you into combos, dealing heavy damage and not giving you a chance to counter, especially with the constant airdash attacks. My constant attempts at dodge rolling and guarding are basically the only way for me to squeeze in a counterattack, and even when I get my attacks in, I've got to keep an eye on how many hits I'm dealing. I can basically get in two full combos with three finishers if i do nothing else, but if I do one too many hits, he'll break out of the combo with an attack of his own, usually via his whip attack.

The bits are incredibly annoying to deal with if they're thrown at you while he continues his attacks, as their shots can interrupt your combos and your attempts at guarding. Best way to handle them from what I've done is just spam Reflega and hope you blast them. Thankfully, once he gets to about half health or so, he starts just sending out a huge wave of bits that vanish after a while.

Most annoyingly, he's got three different attacks that can seal your command menu. The blue and red seals lock specific commands, locking your magic/items or your normal attacks respectively. And the only way to unlock them is by burning away a small extra health bar. The worst one, however, is his bow attack. It entirely seals away your abilities, forcing you to do a roulette on the command menu, much like UNKNOWN's grab attack in KH1. Hitting the wrong prompt deals damage, while hitting the right one frees you. Me messing up the prompt, especially late into the fight, is the cause of a good chunk of my failed attempts.

When he starts using his desperation attack, the window for him being vulnerable to attack decreases greatly, as he'll often start going from one attack to another, and even when he stops, it's for a much shorter amount of time before he starts his next attack. Most often, he ended up being most vulnerable after using that desperation attack, just because that was the attack I could most reliably handle. His last combo can be blocked once you get the timing down, and he finishes the attack very close to you if you're guarding.

And despite all the mistakes here? This was easily one of my better attempts. This boss is just that difficult. But if you're skilled enough and have good timing, you could probobly beat this boss without hardly taking any damage.

[Quanta]

There's always the Peter Pan strat:

[Aria Genisi]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Quanta]

If it makes you feel better, it's apparently extremely hard to keep up since you have to have your jump combos pretty much down pat, and fucking it up means he breaks out and just straight-up murders you.

[Aria Genisi]

yeah that sounds about right

I'm not interested in trying to nail down a cheaty strat like that though, honestly. trying to beat him normally was super satisfying though.

[Aria Genisi]

So there's two things I've been shooting for ever since I beat the game: the platinum trophy, and the secret ending video

the platinum trophy is pretty self explanatory. just get all the achievements for this game, and then I get the platinum trophy achievement. What it boils down to is: do pretty much everything. Complete Jiminy Cricket's journal entirely, get the Gold Crown (get the three Proofs from the Final Mix), synthesize everything and get a collection of every normal material, complete every world, and do a sampling of Gummi Ship gameplay. Enough to get S-ranks on at least one (of three) EX mission on each of the nine routes. And get all the Gummi Ship Blueprints. And then also beat the game on Proud mode and Critical mode. (or just beat it on Critical). To get the platinum trophy, you're mostly getting 100% completion. And a second playthrough, depending on what difficulty you started the game at.

The keyword here is "mostly". See, there's a feature that I hadn't mentioned about KH1 and KH2 (and few other games, but mostly KH1 and 2): there's secret ending videos. Basically, complete a set of requirements (usually just Do Everything, but there's fewer requirements on higher difficulties), and then when you beat the game, a unique pre-rendered video will play (though later games replaced this with ingame cutscenes), that gives a preview of what's to come in the sequel. In KH1, this was more of a concept trailer for what sort of various ideas they had for the sequel at the time, but starting from KH2, these secret endings became proper previews for later games, but then eventually turned into direct lead-ins to the next game.

So yeah, KH2 Final Mix has two secret endings, both acting as previews for the next game (Birth by Sleep). Vanilla KH2 had "The Gathering" as it's secret ending, but in Final Mix, you can easily get to that ending, just by clearing all the worlds and beating the game. To get to the Final Mix secret ending, "Birth by Sleep", I have to (in this standard mode playthrough): Complete the Journal. Get the Gold Crown. And 100% the Gummi Routes.

As part of the platinum trophy requirements, I had to do most of that. Except for the Gummi Ship routes. The trophy wanted me to just get all blueprints and S-Rank one EX-Mission on each route. The secret ending wants me to S-Rank EVERY mission in addition to collecting every single gummi part.


Now, maybe if I were a bit more sensible, I'd just give up and do the Critical Mode playthrough instead. In Critical mode difficulty, I'd just have to beat the game and get the Gold Crown. It'd take a while, but I wouldn't have to suffer through all the extra nonsense. Or better yet, I could just forget about unlocking the ending altogether and just look it up on Youtube.

Except I've already done literally everything else. All that's missing is the remaining gummi stuff. Tonight I just finished S-Ranking the EX Gummi missions, leaving me with just finding all the remaining gummi parts in 6 of the 9 routes. I'm almost done, so I might as well just finish the job.

[Aria Genisi]

all that's left is to do the critical mode playthrough for the platinum trophy

[Aria Genisi]

Kingdom Hearts 3 looks fuckin great

[W.T. Fits]

Mr. Nomura, before you had my attention.

Now... you have my interest.

[Juju&Lulu]

The music when Sora gets into the mech is really good.

[Quanta]

Looks like there's going to be some decent movement tech and synergies available. Still not sold on the flashy finishers for the various command forms though, a little too "PRESS BUTAN 4 FLASHY DAMAGE" for my taste.

Edit: Sad that they weren't able to get Tom Hanks for Woody, but they seemed to get Tim Allen for Buzz, though I imagine getting Tom Hanks would be super-expensive.

[Venusy]

I'm glad there's some Wreck-It Ralph content, but I still want to see if there's a Zootopia level

[Aria Genisi]

[Juju&Lulu]

Ugh still no Kairi, but hey we got Frozen confirmed at least

[Quanta]

Aqua, no! D:

[W.T. Fits]

Aqua, no! D:

[Aria Genisi]

[Soft Snow]

I'm playing my way through Kingdom Hearts 2 right now... I'm about to fight the Hydra...

[Aria Genisi]

Big Hero 6! Gummi Ships!

[Juju&Lulu]

Wow I might actually care about gummi ships in this game

[Aria Genisi]

A new trailer that shows off even more Big Hero 6 stuff as well as more story stuff and clips of some stuff from the Pirates world dropped today. Also, the boxart:

[Juju&Lulu]

INB4 this actually happens in KH3

[Quanta]

I choose to believe this is all canon.

[Aria Genisi]

[Aria Genisi]

I beat Dream Drop Distance a few days ago, and just beat 0.2, so aside from watching Re:Coded and Chi Back Cover, I'm entirely caught up with *everything* that the series has to offer. Just gotta wait only four more months until KH3!

[Aria Genisi]

the mobile game, Kingdom Hearts Union X (cross) got an update last month where in addition to the actual mobile gatcha game, there's a seperate menu on the title screen that lets you play some Classic Kingdom games (game and watch styled minigames) that will be in Kingdom Hearts 3.

There's five of them, and each have a score goal, where you need to score enough points cumulatively across all the times you play a given minigame. Clearing the score goals nets you freemium currency for the mobile game for each one you clear, but if you clear all of them, you'll be able to eventually get a DLC code for Kingdom Hearts 3, which will give you the Starlight keyblade, the unique keyblade from the mobile game.



You can't get the DLC code yet, seeing how the game isn't even out yet, but this DLC thing is listed ingame as a "Limited Time Challenge", so supposedly it will go away eventually.

If you're getting KH3, go ahead and give it a try. You don't even really have to play the mobile game if you don't want to, beyond maybe the tutorial. Or not if you don't care. I'm not your mom.

[Aria Genisi]

New trailer! It's a short version of the opening for KH3, featuring a small bit of the opening theme, Face My Fears, which is a collab between Hikaru Utada and Skrillex



also, the full version of the main theme, Don't Think Twice, got released:

[Aria Genisi]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018 ... n-the-wild

copies of the game somehow got out recently, over a month away from the release of the game, which is honestly nuts.

For those who don't want to get spoiled: Do be careful on YT and what not, as the ALGORITHMS could lead to you getting recommended spoilery nonsense this far away from release.

For those who don't mind spoilers: Please do not post about stuff that's from the leaked copies. It's over a month away. Keep it to yourself, please.


As for me, I'm already starting to hibernate on YT and elsewhere in regards to this game. I expected this to happen eventually, but didn't expect it to happen this soon.